Dean Koontz - City of Night

They ate the boulettes and the fried-okra salads in an intense but comfortable silence.

Then before the jambalaya arrived, Carson said, “Okay, cloning or somehow he can make a perfect physical duplicate of Jack. But how does the sonofabitch make his Jack a medical examiner? I mean, how does he give him Jack’s lifetime of knowledge, or Jack’s memories? ”

“Beats me. If I knew that, I’d have my own secret laboratory, and I’d be taking over the world myself.”

“Except your world would be a better one than this,” she said.

He blinked in surprise, gaped. “Wow.”

“Wow what?”

“That was sweet.”

“What was sweet?”

“What you just said.”

“It wasn’t sweet.”

“It was.”

“It was not.”

“You’ve never been sweet to me before.”

“If you use that word one more time,” she said, “I’ll bust your balls, I swear.”

“All right.”

“I mean it.”

Smiling broadly, he said, “I know.”

“ Sweet ,” she said scornfully, and shook her head in disgust. “Be careful or I might even shoot you.”

“That’s against regulations even during Armageddon.”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna be dead in twenty-four hours anyway.”

He consulted his wristwatch. “Less than twenty three now.”

The waitress arrived with plates of jambalaya. “Can I get you two more beers?”

Carson said, “Why the hell not.”

“We’re celebrating,” Michael told the waitress.

“Is it your birthday?”

“No,” he said, “but you’d think it was, considering how sweet she’s being to me.”

“You’re a cute couple,” said the waitress, and she went to get the beers.

“ Cute? ” Carson growled.

“Don’t shoot her,” Michael pleaded. “She’s probably got three kids and an invalid mother to support.”

“Then she better watch her mouth,” Carson said.

In another silence, they ate jambalaya and drank beer for a while, until finally Michael said, “Probably every major player in city government is one of Victor’s.”

“Count on it.”

“Our own beloved chief.”

“He’s probably been a replicant for years.”

“And maybe half the cops on the force.”

“Maybe more than half.”

“The local FBI office.”

“They’re his,” she predicted.

“The newspaper, local media?”

“His.”

“Whether they’re all his or not, when’s the last time you trusted a reporter?”

“Clueless,” she agreed. “They all want to save the world, but they just end up helping to weave the handbasket.”

Carson looked at her hands. She knew they were strong and capable; they had never failed her. Yet at the moment they looked delicate, almost frail.

She had spent the better part of her life in a campaign to redeem her father’s reputation. He, too, had been a cop, gunned down by a drug dealer. They said that her dad had been corrupt, deep in the drug trade, that he’d been shot by the competition or because a deal had gone sour. Her mother had been killed in the same hit.

Always she had known the official story must be a lie. Her dad had uncovered something that powerful people wanted kept secret. Now she wondered if it had been one powerful person — Victor Helios.

“So what can we do?” Michael asked.

“I’ve been thinking about that.”

“I figured,” he said.

“We kill him before he can kill us.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Not if you’re willing to die to get him.”

“I’m willing,” Michael said, “but not eager.”

“You didn’t become a cop for the retirement benefits.”

“You’re right. I just wanted to oppress the masses.”

“Violate their civil rights,” she said.

“That always gives me a thrill.”

She said, “We’re going to need guns.”

“We’ve got guns.”

“We’re going to need bigger guns.”

Erika’s education in the tank had not prepared her to deal with a man who was chewing off his fingers. Had she matriculated through a real rather than virtual university, she might have known at once what she should do.

William, the butler, was one of the New Race, so his fingers were not easy to bite off. He had to work diligently at it.

His jaws and teeth, however, were as formidably enhanced as the density of his finger bones. Otherwise, the task would have been not merely difficult but impossible.

Having amputated the little finger, ring finger, and middle finger of his left hand, William was at work on the forefinger.

The three severed digits lay on the floor. One was curled in such a way that it seemed to be beckoning to Erika.

Like others of his kind, William could by an act of will repress all awareness of pain. Clearly, he had done so. He did not cry out or even whimper.

He mumbled wordlessly to himself as he chewed. When he succeeded in amputating the forefinger, he spat it out and said frantically, “Tick, tock, tick. Tick, tock, tick. Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tick, tick! ”

Had he been a member of the Old Race, the wall and carpet would have been drenched with blood. Although his wounds began to heal even as he inflicted them on himself, he had still made a mess.

Erika could not imagine why the kneeling butler was engaged upon this self-mutilation, what he hoped to achieve, and she was dismayed by his disregard for the damage he had already done to his master’s properly.

“William,” she said. “William, whatever are you thinking?”

He neither answered nor glanced at her. Instead, the butler stuck his left thumb in his mouth and continued this exercise in express dedigitation.

Because the mansion was quite large and because Erika couldn’t know if any member of the staff might be nearby, she was reluctant to cry out for help, for she might have to get quite loud to be heard. She knew that Victor wished his wife to be refined and ladylike in all public circumstances.

All members of the staff were, like William, of the New Race. Nevertheless, everything beyond the doors of the master suite was most definitely in public territory.

Consequently, she returned to the telephone in the bedroom and pressed the ALL–CALL function of those buttons on the keypad dedicated to the intercom system. Her summons would be broadcast to every room.

“This is Mrs. Helios,” she said. “William is biting off his fingers in the upstairs hall, and I need some assistance.”

By the time she returned to the hallway, the butler had finished with his left thumb and had begun on the little finger of his right hand.

“William, this is irrational,” she cautioned. “Victor designed us brilliantly, but we can’t grow things back when we lose them.”

Her admonition did not give him pause. After spitting out the little finger, he rocked back and forth on his knees: “Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tick , TICK, TICK!”

The urgency of his voice triggered connections between implanted associations in Erika’s mind. She said, “William, you sound like the White Rabbit, pocket watch in hand, racing across the meadow, late for tea with the Mad Hatter.”

She considered seizing the hand that still had four fingers and restraining him as best she could. She wasn’t afraid of him, but she didn’t want to appear forward.

Her in-the-tank education had included exhaustive input on the finest points of deportment and manners. In any social situation from a dinner party to an audience with the Queen of England, she knew the proper etiquette.

Victor insisted upon a poised wife with refined manners. Too bad William wasn’t the Queen of England. Or even the Pope.